In his landmark 1994 National Book Award winner How We Die, surgeon Sherwin Nuland altered our perception of the end of life. Here Nuland steps back to explore the impact of aging on our minds and bodies, our goals and relationships. The changes to the senses, appearance, reflexes, physical endurance, and sexual appetites are undeniable—and rarely welcome—and yet, as Nuland shows, getting older has its surprising blessings. Will scientists one day fulfill the dream of eternal youth? Nuland examines the latest research into extending life and the scientists who are pursuing it. But ultimately, what compels him most is what happens to the mind and spirit as life reaches its culminating decades.

"Two chapters are outstanding; each of them is primarily a profile of an extraordinary person. One focuses on the greatest living cardiologist [in 2007], Michael DeBakey, who [was] professionally and otherwise active at 98. The other profiles the brilliant English eccentric Aubrey de Grey, who has made himself a one-man explanatory and promotional army for the notion that human life is vastly extendable and that maximum longevity is every person's most important right. A couple of other chapters containing portraits of vigorous survivors of severe disease incidents (stroke, heart attack, etc.) are pretty absorbing, and all the advice on aging is sound and unfaddish."—Booklist